But people can wear these now up until the water reaches 83.8 degrees.
If safety is paramount for these people, then surely anyone who is at all nervous for the swim would opt to forego race position.
Or are you suggesting that the inelligibility is driving behaviours we don’t want?
I would think knowing the health/condition of your heart would be a good determiner in then helping with all the variables you just listed. It’s far from the solution to solving swim deaths, but guess what buoy shorts are no closer to solving that either. There is no 1 answer, it’s probaly multi-faceted with swim coverage likely the biggest factor in all of it.
I’ll speak to this, and maybe this will also help those of you who may think I’m a little overreacting to this subject. My brother-in-law was an accomplished age group runner. At age 60 he was receiving invitations to run at major events. He was very focused on his health. He completed a 10k, and started to jog back to the course to encourage other runners. He collapsed, emergency crew was right there, defibrillator, and ambulance. He didn’t make it. He had undergone a series of medical tests just weeks prior as a preventative or more likely OCD measure, he relished his fitness and health. Everything was outstanding. He had no family history of cardiac issues. Unfortunately my sister, who was a nurse, didn’t want an autopsy, she was in shock as we all were. Since then I’ve followed (read what was available) every sudden death in athletics. I also would talk to the spouse or family of a deceased athlete at the memorial race held in their honor. Last year at IM Muncie I was standing at the start line with a nice guy making small talk. That man turned out to be Dr. Eric Wolfe. He was rescued in the water. He died at the hospital. It was determined later that he had an underlying heart condition. His father and his son were at the race with him.
Probably 50% of deaths in athletes from what I’ve seen in the news and research is due to an underlying heart condition. However, when it comes to the other 50% it’s not clear what is happening. One thing that is getting more attention, and Mara’s death at IM Texas has highlighted this, is that sickness or not having a complete recovery after an illness could be a factor. A Doctor working at the medical tent at the Boston Marathon just had a good article describing the relationship between pre race illness and the likelihood of requiring medical assistance during the race.
When you look at triathlete swim deaths, they are not occurring amongst untrained, unhealthy athletes they are occurring to athletes just like us.
Unfortunately pretty much zero of the tri swim deaths are due to people who couldn’t swim and drowned because of it. Im pretty sure even if these folks swam well they’d likely still be at high rise of dying from the heart issue anyway.
And this last swim death was from a woman who qualified for 70.3 worlds. She could swim decently well.
Here’s the other thing. We have had a few members on ST who were in great shape then had a serious cardiac event on the run. Luckily they were not in the water, and are still with us today. Would a minute of extra floatation benefit the person if this same situation happened in the water. Who knows, but isn’t it at least worth exploring the possibility?
Yes, I think that sounds totally fine. Its the ‘swim testing’ or ‘swim validation’ for triathlons that I don’t think will be helpful.
It’s one of those sort of counterintuitive points - most people will hear of these swim deaths and instantly jump to ‘swim validation’ to make sure only people with adequate swimming can participate to avoid future deaths, but when you look at the data, swimming ability has essentially zero role in the deaths.
That said, I’m still horrified by the number of people that can’t make the most generous of swim cutoffs in half, and especially full ironman events. They’re not drowning, though!
Safety and confidence are not the same thing. The only kind of confidence which contributes to safety is justified confidence in one’s own competence as an open water swimmer. False confidence provided by dubious swim aids is the opposite of safety, because it encourages people to take on more than what they can safely handle.
Wetsuits are not swim aids. Wetsuits are a means of protection against the cold. That wetsuits also help to get a better body position in the water is an incidental side-effect. And further, swim aids aren’t personal flotation devices and should not be treated as such. They are tools to help people learn to swim, not to keep them safe in the water without sufficient swimming skills. It’s bad enough that too many inexperienced triathletes already treat their wetsuit as some kind of safety device and rely on it to compensate for their insufficient swimming skills. If we’re interested in improving actual swim safety and not just the dangerous illusion of safety, the last thing we should do is to further encourage such an attitude towards the swim. Rather we should want triathletes to treat the challenge of an open water swim with the level of respect it deserves and prepare themselves accordingly for it.
Which furthers puts into question if the little bit of extra buoyancy from buoyancy shorts would actually make the swim safer. I’m not per se opposed to the idea, but I’ve not yet come across arguments which convinced me that allowing/requiring triathletes to wear buoyancy shorts would actually improve swim safety and outweigh the danger of giving people false confidence.
As macabre as that will sound, but if the only benefit of buoyancy shorts is to make the job a little bit easier for the dive team which has to retrieve the body, I consider that not a sufficiently good reason. Thankfully, deaths in triathlon swims are still rare enough that that doesn’t have to be a major concern whenever we enter the water.
Why not just let people use a swim bouy device during the swim? It doesn’t really offer an advantage and can save your life if you get in a pickle. All of us use them when open water swim training and they’re used in other open water competitions. You could make a rule that the teacher has to be at most x length, like 1 foot or 18 inches or something so they don’t get tangled with other swimmers.
To be clear though that still won’t prevent a lot of the swim deaths that physically happen (usually due to cardiac events)- but it might prevent some of these cardiac events from happening with less stress and panic upon entering the water. Or easy respite if someone starts hyperventilating or struggling with cold water early in the swim, without needing to reach a support craft.
This also IMO helps make the argument for an elite amateur wave between the pros and the regular AG waves- the elite amateur wave wouldn’t be allowed bouys or swim shorts or other assistance, and could even have the same wetsuit cutoffs as the pro rules. Then you can have people that just want to finish having reassurance in the swim, and those wanting to be competitive having a “legit” race
This. The issue isn’t swim competency or drowning in the sense of someone in the water who can’t swim well enough.
But does the stress and anxiety increase the chance of cardiac arrest in the vulnerable population?
Could going out faster than you should, spiking the heart rate, then getting swim over while swallowing water and sinking elevate stress levels?
We’re talking marginal changes that across the board would make the event more enjoyable for thousands and perhaps in some marginal cases might prevent that stress-induced cardiac event from happening. And in more marginal cases, possibly keep them near the surface of the water a little longer for rescue.
Because a swim buoy is explicitly not a personal flotation device. Its purpose is to make you more visible in the water and to allow you to carry stuff with you while swimming, not to act as a lifebuoy if you find yourself overly exhausted in the middle of a lake. Which is why we should absolutely not encourage people to treat them as the latter. There are also genuine concerns whether asking swimmers in an open water swim races to swim with a tow float actually helps or whether it makes for a more confusing view fore the safety personnel.
People who need the ‘reassurance’ of the very questionable buoyancy provided by a wetsuit or buoyancy shorts should not be at the start line of a triathlon. I know we all want to reduce entry barriers to triathlon and be welcoming to new triathletes. But triathlon being swim, bike, run means that there are some non-negotiable barriers to entry, and having sufficient swimming skills is one of them. If somebody lacks the skills, they should do a duathlon or work on acquiring these skills, not hope and pray that their wetsuit will carry them safely to the swim exit.
If the goal is to prevent swim deaths (or maybe all deaths), then wouldn’t a better solution be to move the start of the swim to a more reasonable time? (e.g. not 6 or 7am)
For these events you have more than 2 thousand athletes who have travelled a considerable distance, sleeping in not-their-houses, eating food they’re not typically used to, and then waking up at 3 or 4am, then subjecting themselves to considerable stress (including cold water shock, as well as overheating in a wetsuit). Studies have shown that a 1hr change in time (shifting the clocks for daylight savings) can increase the risk of heart attacks by 24%. What we go through in an IM or a 70.3 has to be worse, even if we’re all fitter than the general population.
I’ll argue that this is the real reason we get swim deaths, and not because of swim skill or lack of buoy or flotation device. These same issues affect the bike/run, but the odds of rescue are greater in those legs. There’s risk inherent in swimming - let’s try to mitigate it, but I don’t think any of these solutions will actually help.
But if we moved the swim start to 9am, then I’d bet that you’d find a meaningful improvement - mostly because we’re back to waking up at a time that’s closer to our natural rhythm. (never mind that you then get hot runs, and/or traffic impacts, but if we’re spitballing about what could help, here’s your answer)
Everyone participating in a race feels that same stress and anxiety. I did a race yesterday and for the first couple 100 meters of the swim my HR is very high and pre-race is stressful. It’s common, ubiquitous, and I have been doing this for 20 years. I’m not adverse to allowing buoyancy shorts but I don’t think they will move the needle in any meaningful way.
So there is real world application that you have to deal with implementing any solutions. Pushing race times back with road closures etc won’t even get out of the “hear me out” phase imo. So any solution sorta has to be within the context of can we actually implement that. And my “doctor physical” solution falls in that; there is no way they’ll ever make that mandatory at the AG scale level; even if that is probaly an appropriate step to check one’s health.
My point was that the cause and solutions presented aren’t linking up, not that I was suggesting we move the start of the race back a few hours.
Most deaths are in wetsuit conditions - adding sim shorts for the share of swims without wetsuits won’t help.
But they are there nevertheless. And if they weren’t there, pretty much all of the triathlons would go out of business. So it’s not really a useful point you’re making from that perspective.
And even more so – I think people doing hard scary things is important. It doesn’t mean I don’t think guardrails and marginal meaningful assistance negates the hard thing.
I’ve told this story before. My daughter did her first triathlon and was terrified of open water swims and has extreme anxiety. Like more than probably anyone you know in some respects. I swam the entire thing at her side. Afterwards I remarked how beautiful the water was with the sun rays coming through. She said she never saw it because she closed her eyes every time she put her face the water. “How did you see where you were going?!?” I asked. “When ever I came up to breathe I was looking at you.” Aside from that heart melting moment, it would be a shame if people think people like her don’t belong in triathlon. Incidentally, she became the “state champion” in that race, as there were only 4-5 girls in her group anyway, but she still beams with pride and uses that as a lesson in doing hard things.
It was wetsuit swim incidentally, and if it was non wetsuit, I would have been much more uncomfortable doing it with her.
Right which is why I’m slightly concerned with this raising fist at the tri world that it has to be X solution and if you don’t agree, your part of the problem condemnation some in this thread are holding.
As I read that it occurred to me if some lawyer hasn’t sued a wetsuit manufacturer for knowingly making a wetsuit that is too constrictive. You might say that’s outrageous, but there’s a whole industry built around outrageous product liability lawsuits that just collect a pay day from the insurance companies rather than go to court.
All else being equal, anything that reduces exertion reduces cardiac event risk. But all else isn’t equal, as racers are choosing their own level of exertion or at least choosing to take part based on their confidence. You will just enable the bar to go lower, so even weaker or panickier swimmers will then take part and send it, having relied on buoyancy shorts. The shorts won’t stop you sinking either - if the argument is to buy time for the rescue, you would need to allow lifejackets. Can only really advocate for allowing swim warmups and rolling start options to limit the shock factor. The rest is up to the entrant
But triathlon being swim, bike, run means that there are some non-negotiable barriers to entry, and having sufficient swimming skills is one of them. If somebody lacks the skills, they should do a duathlon or work on acquiring these skills, not hope and pray that their wetsuit will carry them safely to the swim exit.
That’s a bit harsh and misses the problem. Like others have said, it’s not swim ability as much as the panic and fear that comes from open water starts, people swimming on top of and over each other, and often cold water shock in a lot of these cases. Even great swimmers have had issues- remember a few years ago Lionel getting a panic attack in cold water at Indian Wells (which yes he’s not a great swimmer as a pro but he could swim laps around almost everyone on this forum). We’ve all been there where we’ve gotten clocked or swam over or googles knock off, or had a wave we didn’t see break right over us, and it can be very frightening and disorienting even if you are a good swimmer.
I’ll give you a personal example not even in a race, I swim in the ocean a lot in the summer and was going around a jetty (not far offshore mind you, probably 50ft) when I got caught in a rip current or an eddy and the next thing I knew I was being dragged at an alarming rate to 2x the distance I was from the shore. I’m not a fast swimmer by any measure, but I am stable and consistent, and I was able to swim pretty much max effort for 5 mins, get back to my place, and eventually out of it and to shore. But in that moment where you can feel yourself suddenly get pulled out to sea, even wearing a wetsuit and a bouy, was pretty frightening, and even though a few mins of swimming hard shouldn’t have taken much out of me I felt really spent from the stress and panic of that situation.